From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Starting troubles on a Bentley Trials Car, traced to a seized fibre bush in the distributor.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 163\7\ img221 | |
| Date | 13th December 1933 | |
| 86120. WST see me HS{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} To E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} from Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} re Bentley. Sg{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD}12/E13.12.33 Copy to Wor.{Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager}Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}EX. I lent one of the Bentley Trials Cars this last week-end to Professor Dodds of whom you may or may not have heard, but he is a very severe critic of a motor-car and has tried our other cars at different times and given us valuable and very useful reports on them. I enclose copy of his letter to me from which you will see that he had a lot of trouble in starting the engine, both hot and cold. I have been making enquiries into the cause of the trouble and Crawford has just brought me the enclosed contact make and break arm from the distributor of this particular car, B.15.AE. could be Apparently when we got the car back to Lillie Hall it was found next morning that no spark produced and investigation showed that this arm was seized up in the fibre bush. In getting it out the fibre bush was broken. This doubtless accounts for Professor Dodds' trouble. Crawford tells me that trouble with these fibre bushes swelling and seizing up used to occur on Silver Ghost cars years ago and that the bush was changed for something else - he believes phosphor bronze. I should be glad if you would look into the whole matter and let me hear from you in due course on the subject. The part in question does not look to me to be a RR-made job and I should be interested to know whether it is or not. On the identical part on the 25 HP and the 40/50 HP we use a metal bush so that I should be all the more interested to know why we have reverted to fibre on the Bentley as we knew many years ago that fibre suffered from the | ||